1. Technical Field
Aspects of the present invention relate to a print data generating apparatus and print data generating programs therefore, and image processing apparatus and image processing programs therefor capable of generating print data which is used for printing in the printing apparatus, and more specifically, capable of generating print data suitable for printing each of pixels of an image in a desired color in the printing apparatus.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, in an inkjet printing apparatus that performs recording by ejecting inks onto a recording medium, the inks are ejected from ejecting nozzles, which are provided at an end of ink channels, by leading the inks from ink reservoirs to a plurality of ejecting channels in inkjet heads, and by selectively activating actuators (e.g., heating elements, piezoelectric elements, and the like). When an image is formed in colors, each of pixels composing the image is resolved, for example, into the three primary colors, which are cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y), then a colored pixel is formed as the inks adjusted in their densities are ejected onto the recording medium. Also, a pixel which contains black as a component is generally reproduced as a black (K) ink is ejected onto the recording medium. Further, in recent years, a printing apparatus wherein a white (W) ink is used in order to achieve an image with high reproducibility on the recording medium, when a ground color of the recording medium is a color other than white, is known.
Also conventionally, various techniques designed for processing a background color of an image during the time of image printing are known. An example of such techniques is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. H 6-237374 (hereinafter referred to as “'374 publication”). In a picture processing unit in '374 publication, when a print control key is pressed and an image received therein is displayed in a display section, the image with its background color extracted is displayed. When an instruction for executing a printing operation is given, the image without the background color is printed. With this process, an unnecessary background color is prevented from being printed so that consumption of ink is decreased.
For another example, an overlay printing processing method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2000-163238 (hereinafter referred to as “'238 publication”). In this method, a binary raster image is dynamically produced as mask data based on shape data of the print data. Logical AND of each color component of the raster image data for overlaying and the mask data is obtained, and logical OR of the data undergoing the logical AND with the mask data and each color component of the raster image of the print data is obtained. Thus, accurately overlaid reverse character and diagram which has a same color as the background can be achieved.
Further, an example of a color printer, wherein a paper is colored in an arbitrary color without preparing a color paper, is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication 2000-272174 (hereinafter referred to as “'174 publication”). In this color printer, a background color is designated through an operation panel or a command from a host PC (personal computer) so that print data is transmitted to the color printer from the host PC. Thereafter, frame memory corresponding to one page of the paper is prepared in a controller, and an operation to fill the frame memory with the designated background color is executed. Further, developed print data is overwritten in the frame memory.
When a recording medium with its color being other than white (e.g. yellow) is used, a user may create image data having a background area of which color is represented in yellow in consideration of printing the image on yellow as a ground color. In this regard, the yellow background area in the printed image may be printed in one of three patterns, which are “printing in a transparent color (i.e., no printing is performed)”, “printing in white”, and “printing in yellow”. Further, when a color of the recording medium is blue, and the user creates image data having a background area of which color is represented in yellow, the yellow background area in the printed image may be printed in one of four patterns, which are “printing in a transparent color (i.e., no printing is performed)”, “printing in white”, “printing in yellow”, and “printing in blue”.
Thus, in general, the background area may be printed in one of three patterns, which are “printing in the color represented by the image data as it is”, “printing in a transparent color”, and “printing in a specific color instead of the color represented by the image data”. Conventionally, however, the user has not been allowed to arbitrarily designate the printing pattern of the background color. Therefore, for example, when the user intends to print the background area, of which color is represented in yellow in the image data, in a specific color (for example, blue), the user has been required to execute an editing operation on the image data by substituting yellow as the background color into blue, and creating the print data based on the edited image data.
According to the picture processing unit disclosed in '374 publication and the image processing method disclosed in '238 patent, the user can arbitrarily designate colors and areas to be printed in the transparent color, and according to the color printer in '174 publication, the white color in the white area in the image data can be replaced into another color. Even with these techniques, however, the user are not allowed to arbitrarily designate one of the three patterns to print the background area in the image printing operation, nor to designate a plurality of the background colors so that each of the background colors can be respectively set.
Meanwhile, a plurality of pixels that configure the image data, which are other than the pixels in areas other than the background area, can also be printed in one of the three patterns, which are “printing in the color represented by the image data as it is”, “printing in the transparent color”, and “printing in a specific color instead of the color represented by the image data”. Therefore, the pixels in the areas other than the background area contain the similar problems regarding the data generation to the pixels in the background area. That is, the user is required to edit the image data so that the pixels in the image can be printed in a desired color when the desired color to be printed is different from a color of the pixels displayed on a display device.
In addition, in some cases the user may wish to process one area in one solid color displayed on the display device to be divided into smaller areas so that each area can be printed on a recording medium in different colors. For example, it may be desired that a part of a background area displayed in yellow should be printed in the transparent color while the remaining part of the background area should be printed in blue. In such cases, conventionally, the user has been required to perform operations to edit the pixels and the smaller areas respectively.
However, such operations are often complicated and troublesome, and various mistakes may occur during the operation. Therefore, it has been difficult for the user to achieve a desired printed image on the recording medium. It should be noted that a solution to solve the above problems so that one solid color in one area in the image data is printed in different colors partially or on a pixel basis is found in any of the inventions disclosed in the above '374, '238, and '174 patents.